There is an idea in semantic linguistics, and indeed shared by all logical and rhetorical fields, called ‘presupposition’. It means exactly what it means in everyday speech, exactly what you presuppose it to me. There is an invisible structural facet to language which causes users to make inferences that may or may not have a positive truth value (if we’re examining this from a truth-funxional semantic point), but are nonetheless accepted as fact.
Look at the sentence: “I stopped going to class”. Where is the assumption? There is implicit semantic knowledge encoded into the word ‘stop’ and within the sentence in its entirety. There’s something about the past tense, as is following from grammatical guidelines, which suggests an event has ended, and because it was temporally behind, mechanically distant, that it happened in the first place. I stopped going to class. In order to do that, at least grammatically, I needed to go to class in the first place. But is this true? Have you been enframed without awareness? Has your world been shrunk subtly by the tyranny of grammar?
If I never went to class, is it not true that I stopped going? We would never phrase it this way of course. Stop is sudden, it’s not an existential qualifier or a continuous verb. But from a purely representation sense, this absurd sentence is also true in its own way.
Think of the way simple qualifiers attached by copula form foundational identities to their ascribed. In the sentence ‘You are a student’, the transitory state of attending school suddenly becomes an existential piece to identity. A foundational aspect. You ARE a student. It defines you, rather than being an activity you are currently undertaking. I AM a student. It’s a part of me.
In language, all copulation follows suit. Sometimes, this identity prescription is accurate. I AM hungry. I AM angry. You ARE here. But many other times it helps to divide the ascribed categorically into an easier to understand group, and as Derrida showed up, all these groups are hierarchical.
Think of race as the simplest example. I AM white. This ascription allows me certain benefits and comes loaded with connotations. On the cultural hierarchy it is placed higher than its juxtaposed opposites, at least in a western country.
Does the same thing happen with ‘I am a student’? Are there not biases that come attached with this identity too? Is a student not judged stereotypically to be rigorous? To be dedicated? To be intelligent? What about their placement in regards to lesser appreciated career positions. If I instead say ‘I am a garbage man’, suddenly my cultural persona is lesser in comparison to the ‘student’. Despite, from a purely labour standpoint, providing more contribution than the student, I am viewed as someone who has likely ‘failed’ in life, landed in a bad position, maybe even associated with other signs structurally like criminality or poverty. And yet, none of this is true. Garbage men make a decent living. There is no statistical connexion between criminality and the job. And perhaps most importantly, aside from the job, there are many other aspects to this individual. They are not just ‘a garbage man’. (See how the phrase ‘garbage man’ itself has a preposition within it in its gendering of the position).
In a world of conflicting identities, the battlefield classical Liberals (in the true sense of the term) have tried so hard to fashion is that of identity; this copulation becomes crucial. Think in terms of LGBTQ issues. Instead of being viewed as a person, their position is reduced to ‘they are gay’. They are nothing more. What if they were a garbage man? Could these two copulated identities coexist? Does one take precedent over the other culturally? One politically takes precedent because it can be weaponised by either side, either to dehumanise or seemingly empower. Though both acts are contained within either usage. Words contain multitudes, we just allow them to be simple. There is not a single piece a sign refers to.
And the same thing continues with connotation, how geschichte-verfolgt a word is. Students, as seen earlier, brings associations. Someone who eats ramen to save money. Who studies. Who learns. This is true for every word and every form of copulation. It’s inherently political. It’s inherently hierarchical. And the very definition constrains the potential of the ascribed. You must now conform to the identity grafted to you.
We are living in a prison of our words. Words which inform and shape society. Words which are more tangible and real than any semiotic correlation.
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